FACTBOX - Highs and lows in German-U.S. relations

(Reuters) - U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is to deliver a speech on transatlantic relations and meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel during a visit to Berlin on Thursday. Below are some key events in postwar German-U.S. relations:

POST-WAR DEVELOPMENTS

* In 1945, Soviet leader Josef Stalin, U.S. President Harry Truman and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill met to settle the fate of defeated Nazi Germany at the Potsdam Conference.

* The powers finalised the division of Germany into Western and Soviet occupation zones agreed five months before at Yalta. The zones evolved into East and West Germany in 1949, products of the East-West military standoff dividing Europe.

* In 1948, Soviet forces blocked all traffic to the three Western sectors of Berlin, starting the Berlin blockade on June 24. In response, Western allies launched an airlift of essential supplies to West Berlin. At its peak, the airlift brought in a plane every one to two minutes.

THE ECONOMIC MIRACLE OR "WIRTSCHAFTSWUNDER":

* Konrad Adenauer, one of the founding fathers of the Christian Democrats (CDU), was elected Chancellor in West Germany's first democratic election in 1949. He presided over the postwar "economic miracle", helped vastly by the Marshall Plan under which West Germany received huge U.S. investment.

WEST VERSUS EAST

* U.S. President John F. Kennedy visited Berlin in 1963, just two years after the Berlin Wall was built, and declared "Ich bin ein Berliner" (I am a Berliner), stressing U.S. commitment to resisting any Soviet threat.